Nines M1 at Winter League 3, 2024 #
Below are videos from the weekend of Winter League 3 and some comments.
After a lot of work on fitness and work in small boats that give feedback we want to focus on rowing in the eight. To goal is to gel as a crew and to minimise the internal losses. Internal losses is any work where we work against each other but that does not propel the boat. This happens in these situations:
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We arrive early at the catch and wait: our momentum into the front is absorbed by the shell and slows it down.
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We drive without being connected in the water: we are driving the shell back (exchange of momentum), making it feel heavy for everyone else in the crew.
To avoid this we want to create a rhythm and movement that creates as much time as possible so we feel calmness and never have to do to anything quick. Quickness develops as a consequence of precision and predictability.
In particular:
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We want to finish all big body movements at 1/4 slide while the knees are still down and provide stability. We let the hand lead the recovery - the hand moves the body and the body moves the seat - while the legs are relaxing and we can feel the run of the boat.
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Oars, shell, and rower are a connected whole. This implies that we stabilize our body using internal muscles and maintain good contact with the shell and rigger. In the recovery the weight is distributed between seat, rigger and feet. We want the weight come to the feet only after we have anchored the blade.
Comments #
Comments are on individual seats but illustrate universal principles.
Shoulders at the Catch #
John and Dave lift their shoulders at the catch. We want to decouple the movement of the hand from the movement of the body and keep the body still. We are looking for a small hand movement and using the feet to connect the blade. On race day Dave did this much better.
Inside Arm at the Catch #
Notice differences across the crew for what the inside arm is doing: if it is heavily bent it suggests that body rotation is started late or there is not enough of it. We don't want a locked out inside arm - it needs to be loose - but we want to keep the shoulders mostly parallel to the handle.
Long Finish #
I am not sure but thought maybe Tommy's finish is a bit too long. When is a finish too long? The blade needs to be fast enough such that the water at the back of blade does not catch up with the blade and a whole is maintained. If the water does catch up, extraction becomes a wrestle.
This is typically less of a problem in sweep than in sculling because the body limits how far the handle can go.
Notice the hole behind the blade of Ben. The back of Stefan's blade is also clearly visible.
(No) Reach at the Front #
There is good consistency at the front: we want to avoid over-reach. If we reach too far, we use the handle to stabilise the body and this slows the hand movement. In the drive the body will open early to re-gain stability. So we only want to reach so far that we are still and stable, and are free to raise the hand.
Rich is looking for an extra-long catch but I would suggest to be more comfortable with less - especially in an eight, in stern pair, and high rate. Stern pair's job is it to make everyone's life easy.
Reach at the Finish #
Stern pair are looking for a long finish. Again, I think less is more: a more compact stroke especially when the rate comes up.
Quick Cover of the Blade #
Almos and Patrick's blade are sometimes behind on blade entry. They key to improve this is a controlled, relaxed position at the front where hands are light and we can feel the weight of the blade. The handle is unloaded and gravity does most of the work. At higher rate of 30+ the handle needs to be moved up deliberately to support this.
Sitting tall at the front and looking ahead is part of this. Rich is seen over-compressing - hence the white circle.
Posture at the Finish #
We want the simplest possible movements and I believe keeping the outside elbow next to the body leads to relaxed hands and wrists. The power at the finish is coming from the inside hand
- with the inside elbow moving past the body.
Hanging in the Drive #
We are looking to connect the feet to the hand as directly as possible. Contracting the arm engages small muscles. It takes relaxation: when we are hanging from a bar, we first contract our muscles before we realise, we can hang from a bar without doing that.
A slight bend of the arm is natural as a consequence of engaging the lats, which in turn avoid shoulders to come up.
Blade Depth #
The exact depth is less important than keeping the depth consistent as otherwise water can more easily flow around the blade. I believe Stefan (19) could rely more on the blade finding its own depth. 1G